The Missing Cash Mystery

by Doris Hay

  I like this liner. I lick it. The texture soothes me, and I feel safe in here, where Doris can’t see me.

  I hear her splashing around in the water. Does she think she’s still got me in her hand? I poke my head out to get a look.

  “Oh my goodness gracious, that’s a deep one!”

  She’s talking to her hand. It’s bleeding. That’s my fault. Poor Doris! She didn’t deserve to be stabbed and bitten.

  I watch as she pours antiseptic over her wounds and tears open a bandage with her teeth. Once she’s covered up the worst of the cuts, she opens the bottom cabinet where she keeps all her cleaning supplies. In there, she finds a pair of brand new yellow rubber gloves and puts them on.

  Then she empties the water from the sink. Thank goodness! I’m in the clear!

  Once the water has finished that scary gurgling noise it makes when it’s going down the drain, I venture toward the sink. Water tastes best when you lick it off that metal ring at the base. My paws get a little wet when I jump into the emptied sink, but I shake it off and go in for a drink.

  I know I’ve made a vital error the moment Doris wraps her hand around my body. It feels so strange to be held by this rubber glove. I don’t like it. But I don’t even have time to struggle before the tap is on and water’s cascading onto my head.

  What can I do? I scream in terror of it all. This is awful. It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me! Cold water is streaming down my back, soaking through my fur. I feel it against my skin. It’s awful.

  Doris turns on the hot tap with her free hand, but what good is that? So the water is warm instead of cold. So what? It’s still water.

  I see mud at my feet. It’s swirling down the drain. Doris must hate me, to put me through this trauma. She hates me. That’s why she’s adopting a new cat. She’s going to bring in her friend’s pet and kick me to the curb. I bet you anything that’s what’s going to happen.

  Doris squirts liquid soap down my back and works it into my fur until I’m lathered up like Mr. Bubble. I’m scratching the enamel, exhausted from the struggle. I can’t keep this up. I’m not going to win.

  So I quit trying.

  I give up. The soap wins.

  Doris holds me tight, rinsing the suds from my fur until the water going down the drain runs free and clear. She tells me I’m a good girl as she wraps me up tight in a pink hand towel. This feels nice, I have to admit. She sits on the lid of the toilet like it’s a chair and sets me in her lap. I’m a sweet little bundle of towel and fur, and she rubs me, massages me, tells me it’s going to be okay.

  I believe her.

  She says, “When you’re all nice and dry, I’ll give you a few of those shrimp treats you love so much. Don’t tell the others. It’ll be our little secret.”

  She lifts me to her face and kisses my nose, my forehead. I’m not sure yet if I like kisses. Butterball does, but Zorro doesn’t. Usually I try to follow Zorro’s lead, but I think Butterball might have it right with this one.

  Sighing, Doris says, “Can you believe that about Tommy, stealing money from his parents like that?”

  I squeak out a little mewl to encourage her.

  “He always was a spoiled brat,” she continues. “I used to babysit him every once in a while, when he was young. He was every bit the brat then, too.”

  I meow inquisitively.

  With a laugh, Doris says, “I remember one time I had him over at my place, watching him while Gemma and Ed were out doing something or other. Gemma told me he loves hot dogs and baked beans, make him hot dogs and baked beans for dinner. He insisted on eating in front of the television. Well, fine, okay. I left him in front of the television with his hot dogs and baked beans, and I came up here to wash dishes. A few days go by and something starts to smell. I can’t figure out what it is. Gemma pops by, and she knows exactly where to look. She takes off the heating grate, you know the rectangular vent in the floor, and she says to me: ‘There’s your culprit.’ Hot dogs and beans in my heating vent. ‘He does this all the time at home,’ she tells me. ‘Tommy just loves throwing food down the vents.’ Have you ever heard such a thing?”

  Doris rubs my head slowly and says, “I guess Gemma’s right about one thing: if you don’t have kids, you just don’t know. I wouldn’t have tolerated my child putting food down my heating vents. I wouldn’t tolerate my child stealing from me. But what do I know? I’m not a mother. Except to you, my little cupcake.” She kisses my head. “But that’s not the same, is it? No, it’s not the same…”

  I know she’s sad, and the best I can do is sit still to keep from annoying her. I let her pet me longer than I normally would. Anyway, it feels nice.

  “That boy,” she says. “That man—he has no idea how hard his parents worked to get where they are today. He takes it all for granted: the properties, the money, the success. To live off his parents the way he does, into his thirties? I just don’t understand it. But, like I say, I’m not a mother. What do I know?”

  Doris takes off the rubber gloves and strokes the top of my head with her bare thumb. I like it. I push back to show her how much

  “Ed and Gemma weren’t born rich, you know. Far from it. When they moved in next door, they were just scraping by. Ed worked construction, Gemma was a secretary. Well, Ed had a falling out with someone-or-other, and suddenly his name was mud. Couldn’t for the life of him find another job. They were barely getting by on Gemma’s income. Between you, me and the apple tree, they nearly lost the house. If I hadn’t loaned them a bit of money, they’d have been out on their ears.”

  No surprise Ed calls Tommy a layabout. If I’d been on the brink of poverty, I’d want my son to learn the value of money.

  I wonder why Ed hasn’t forced Tommy to get a job. Maybe Gemma always steps in and stands up for his son. Daddies are devoted to their daughters, mothers to their sons.

  “That’s when Ed decided to go into business for himself—construction, contracting, whatever you call it. Building work. Gemma did double duty: worked full-time at her day job, then came home at night to do Ed’s billing. She always handled the paperwork side of thing. You know that old saying: Behind every great man is a great woman. Well, that business of Ed’s would have crumbled at his feet if it hadn’t been for Gemma.”

  I had a feeling Gemma was running the show. She certainly seems the type.

  “Even once they were making money, it wasn’t smooth sailing,” Doris says with a heavy sigh.

  She gives me a pleasant squeeze inside the towel and I feel safe in her hands.

  She whispers, “Having money wasn’t any easier for Ed than not having money. He didn’t know what to do with it. Started gambling, and that was bad news all around. It’s an addiction, you know, for some people. It certainly was for him. Finally they had money coming in, and it was going out just as quickly. All that hard work down the drain…”

  Doris peels the towel away from my fur, and the room suddenly feels cold.

  “But he kicked the habit, with Gemma’s help. They’ve been through a lot, those two.”

  I try to lick the wetness from my fur, but Doris traces the towel along my tail and it surprises me. Now that I’m no longer bundled up, I jump from her lap to the floor and scratch at the closed door. I need to find a spot in the sun so I can dry off in peace.

  Chuckling sweetly, Doris stands and wipes up splatters of mud and water from the countertop. “Look at my little Ginger, so squirmy! Just like Tommy when he was little. Now there was a child who couldn’t sit still.”

  I scratch harder at the door to get my point across, and Doris concedes. But as she opens the door, I hear her say, “Nothing like his older sister. That child was always so well-behaved. Such a good little girl…”

  I’m halfway down the stairs before it hits me: Tommy isn’t the only one who knew about the money in his parents’ safe.

  Not if he has a sister.

  Chapter 5

  Butterball and Zorro aren’t in the kitchen. They aren’
t in the bedroom or the office. I’m zooming around the house so fast my head spins.

  I hope they haven’t gone out.

  No, they haven’t. I can hear them in the lounge. So I zip down the stairs, but the stairs are too high and I’m going to fast, and I tumble down the carpeted steps like I’ve done so many times before.

  The others laugh their tails off when they get a look at me. Who wouldn’t? I’m soaked through and through, even after the towel-dry with Doris.

  My investigation remains top of mind, even while the boys tease and taunt me.

  “Did you know Gemma and Ed have a daughter?” I ask.

  The laughter slows to a chuckle, but it doesn’t disappear altogether.

  Butterball says, “Of course we did, dear child. You have lived here all of five minutes. You know nothing of our pleasant enclave.”

  “Well, why do you think I’m asking?” It’s hard to keep my frustration in check when I’m looking for answers and Butterball insists on commenting about my age. “Go on, then. What can you tell me about this girl?”

  “What, precisely, would you like to know?”

  Zorro hops down from the back of the couch and helps me dry off. His tongue is both soothing and rough. I like it when he helps clean me. In between licks, he says, “Her name is Penelope. She’s two years older than Tommy. She lived with her parents, same as him, until a couple years ago.”

  “Why did she move away?” I ask.

  “Children are meant to move away,” Butterball says in a haughty tone. “I don’t understand all this sponging off Mummy and Daddy until they have to sue you to get you out of their house!”

  Gasping, I ask, “Did Gemma and Ed sue their own daughter?”

  “No, nothing like that,” Zorro replies.

  “In fact, just the opposite,” Butterball says. “Gemma and Ed own quite a number of investment properties. When their Arizona tenants failed to renew the lease, Gemma decided it was time for Penelope to spread her wings.”

  “They offered the house to her, no strings attached,” Zorro adds.

  “How do you know all this?” I ask.

  Butterball says, “We’ve overheard many a conversation between Doris and Gemma over the years.”

  “So this girl, Penelope, her parents just gave her a house?”

  “To live in,” Zorro says. “I don’t think she owns it outright, but don’t quote me on that.”

  “And the house is in Arizona? That’s where she lives?”

  The boys both nod.

  “That’s a long way away,” I say, though, truthfully, I have no idea where Arizona is. “I guess Penelope must work, if she lives on her own. She must have a job out there in Arizona.”

  “Highly doubtful,” Butterball says. “Who would hire her? That girl hasn’t worked a day in her life. She’s as bad as her brother. Spoiled, spoiled children.”

  “No, you’re wrong!” Zorro exclaims.

  “You disagree that they’re spoiled?”

  “No, not about that. About the work thing. Don’t you remember just before Penelope moved away Gemma and Ed set up both kids with cushy office jobs in their contracting firm?”

  Reflecting, Butterball says, “Ah yes, that’s right. How could it have slipped my mind? What a disaster that was!”

  “What happened?” I ask.

  Zorro and Butterball both start talking at once, and I hear Butterball the loudest even though he’s all the way across the room and Zorro is right in my ear.

  “The children rarely showed up for work. And when they did, they’d arrive three hours late and leave three hours early!”

  Zorro says, “Any work they did, they did wrong, and then someone else from the company needed to fix it. So obviously the other workers resented having the boss’s kids around. It created friction in the company.”

  “The parents very quickly decided their firm was not the right place for their children to work.”

  “Is that why Penelope moved so far away?” I ask. “Was she mad at her parents for firing her?”

  “On the contrary,” Butterball replies. “I imagine Tommy and Penelope both were relieved to be dismissed from their posts. They never wanted to work in the first place.”

  This is a lot to take in all at once. A few minutes ago, I didn’t even know Penelope existed. Now she’s a second spoiled brat living off her parents, but all the way in Arizona.

  “I have a question,” I announce. The boys don’t seem too surprised. “Why did Gemma and Ed give Penelope a house and not give Tommy one too?”

  “You’d have to ask them,” Zorro says. “If you’re looking for a best guess, I’d say it’s a mothers-and-daughters thing.”

  I don’t know what that means, so I ask him to explain.

  “Well, see, mothers and daughters have a hard time living with each other as adults. They need time apart so they can come back together and be friends later.”

  “You’re suddenly an expert in the nuanced relationship between mothers and daughters?” Butterball asks.

  With a casual shrug, Zorro says, “I read books.”

  “What about fathers and sons?” I ask. “Oopsie told me that Ed calls Tommy a layabout, but not in front of his face and not in front of Gemma. If mothers and daughters have trouble living together, do fathers and sons have trouble too?”

  Butterball says, “The trouble with that family is the parents pay for everything, and the kids feel entitled to it.”

  “To what?” I ask.

  “To everything! Penelope and Tommy are spoiled children, even as adults. They get whatever they want. All they need to do is ask.”

  Zorro nods along, but he doesn’t seem as riled up as Butterball.

  “Well, I guess that’s one reason I don’t believe it was Tommy who stole the cash out of the safe. Why would he steal money when he could just as easily ask for it? If his parents give him everything he needs, he doesn’t have to steal.”

  “Unless he needed it for something nefarious,” Zorro reasons.

  Butterball isn’t listening to us. He’s still ranting about the kids being spoiled brats. “Years ago, before even you had graced us with your presence, Zorro, Gemma and Ed wanted to move to a bigger house. In those days, their house was the smallest on the block, even smaller than ours if you can imagine.”

  I actually can’t imagine a house smaller than ours. Maybe if it was a bungalow instead of split-level? Or a doghouse.

  “After slaving away at their business, they’d finally saved enough money to move. But Penelope kicked up such a fuss you could hear it from next door. That child refused to leave the neighbourhood.”

  “She didn’t want to leave her friends?” I ask.

  “She didn’t want to leave the grilled cheese sandwiches at that horrid diner two blocks up! The girl was obsessed!”

  Zorro smacks his lips. “I could sure go for some cheese right about now.”

  “Doris will never give it to you,” I tell him. “She knows what it does to your digestion. And then we all suffer!”

  Zorro gives me a playful nudge. He knows I’m right.

  Butterball hasn’t stopped talking, even though the two of us are only half listening. “Can you imagine a set of parents allowing their child to call all the shots? On account of grilled cheese? It’s ludicrous! At any rate, when the house two doors down from here came up for sale, Ed and Gemma bought it up, knocked it down, and instantly doubled their property size. Seeing as they owned a firm that dealt in such matters, they hired themselves to build the grand house you see next door. They started with the smallest house on the block, and ended with the largest.”

  “A sure-fire target for burglars,” Zorro says.

  I eye him curiously. Is he coming around to my side? Maybe I’ve convinced him that Tommy might not be the culprit after all.

  “Gemma mentioned that Tommy’s girlfriend Amber used to be a drug addict,” I say. “Oopsie says she has her own apartment, but they spend most of their time next door. That means sh
e would be able to get through the security system, and she’d probably know about the different safes. What if she’s back into drugs? She’d need lots of money. Wouldn’t that make her the most likely suspect?”

  I look to Zorro, but Zorro looks to Butterball. He asks, “What do we know about this Amber girl?”

  Blank stares all around. Even Butterball doesn’t have an answer to that one.

  Chapter 6

  Doris watches television with Zorro stretched out next to her and Butterball curled up in her lap. When the new cat arrives, she’ll sneak in on the other side and where will I be?

  I’m not that interesting in what they’re watching anyway, so I climb the stairs and slip out through the cat door.

  Doris doesn’t like me going out at night, but I need some time to myself. I climb the fence and stare at the moon. If it gives off light, why doesn’t it feel nice on my fur the way sunshine does? Why is nighttime always colder than the day? What are stars made of? I like the way they sparkle up there against that velvety sky.

  When the new cat gets here, what will happen to me? What if four cats is too many for Doris and she dumps me on someone else? I really like my life here with Zorro and Doris—and Butterball, even if he gets on my nerves sometimes.

  I don’t want to leave. It’s not fair.

  The sliding glass door opens and Oopsie comes running out into the yard. He only gets as far as the garden before he squats by the flowerbed.

  A man follows the neighbour dog out and slides the door closed. That must be Ed. Wow, is he ever handsome! If Doris dumps me, maybe I can move in with him! He must be at least in his fifties or sixties if he has a son Tommy’s age, but he certainly doesn’t look it. He looks like a movie star! I could watch him tap at that phone of his all day long.

  While I’m staring at Ed, Oopsie start yapping, ruining my fantasy of spending the rest of my life batting Ed’s pant legs.

  He looks up from his phone just long enough to say, “Quiet down, Oopsie.”